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Monday, January 25, 2016

Most of the people in my life that I know are from New York, especially Long Island and the New York City region. This was made all the more clear last night, when my Facebook feed erupted in gloating after the Denver Broncos defeated the New England Patriots in last night's AFC title game. No seventh trip to the Super Bowl for coach Bill Belichick, quarterback Tom Brady, and the rest of the Pats. No fifth Super Bowl title for the hated team from New England. My friends who are Jets fans were joined by a lot of others from all across the country in gleefully waving

to New England.

Of course, this also leads to predictions of New England's demise. Tom Brady is 38, ancient for a quarterback. Coach Bill Belichick can't do this forever. And in the modern world of sports, there's no way they can hold this winning team together for much longer, right? Jets fans (and, seemingly, everyone else) are salivating over a season of mediocrity from New England, or even something as bad as Belichick's first season in New England, when the Patriots went five and eleven. Everyone would like to see New England plunged back into the dark ages, maybe into a run as desperately bad as the Detroit Lions of 2008 (winless) or the Columbia University football squad (forty-four consecutive losses). That would be sweet revenge, right?

Maybe not.

Though the Patriots can no longer quite be considered a true dynasty team in the sense of what the word means (multiple consecutive championships, like the New York Yankees who won five straight World Series titles, the Montreal Canadiens, who won five straight Stanley Cups and appeared in an astounding ten consecutive Stanley Cup finals, or the Boston Celtics and their eight straight NBA championships) their consistent winning record is the closest thing we have in sports right now. The changes that have occurred in modern sports--salary caps, free agency, endless expansion, of leagues and playoffs--have all but knocked off the true dynasties, and that's too bad, in my opinion.

The people who run the sports leagues want parity, and there's something to be said for it. As a fan, it's nice to look at your team and your favorite sports league at the beginning of a season and think, "We've got a shot." It's also nice to know that rebuilding your team to contender status doesn't have to take a generation. Playoff races are more intense and upsets in the playoffs are more likely--hooray for parity! Yet, I feel like we're losing something at the same time.

Dynasties give us someone to hate. They also give us someone to look up to, to grudgingly admire. Dynasty teams tend to bring out the best in their opponents, even if they end up making them look silly. They serve as motivation and provide a template for other general managers. And if we're lucky, and our general manager is any good, we fans have hope that, some day, our team will be the one sitting on the throne and running off championship after championship.

We don't know if the Patriots are done. Maybe they are, maybe they're not. But I think that, when they are finally gone (as all dynasties must eventually fall), some of those Jets fans will one day look back and say (grudgingly), "Yeah, that was one hell of a football team."

Monday, January 18, 2016

Another Monday morning in blogland. Yesterday was spent on the road; the Catbird went back to school after a nice month home, and I'm finding that, the older I get, the more long drives wear me out. So, this will be one of those days where I'm just meandering around a bit, as opposed to one of those times where I have something coherent to say.

FIRST, writing land business. Agent Carrie is open to submissions for her query critique. If you've got a query, and you're looking for a shot at having an agent critique it (and having an agent potentially review your first hundred pages), go check it out. And if you don't have a query, consider checking back there in a few days or a week, so that you can help the lucky winner--and learn something yourself.

And speaking of Agent Carrie, just as governors have a State of the State address, and presidents do a State of the Union, she and I will be conferring for our annual State of the Partnership Phone Conference. This is a chance to formally discuss what's going on and setting the goals and plans for the coming year into place. For me, on the broadest level, it's "finish the book, start the next," though I have other thinsg in mind, as well.

While on the subject of writing, I did "finish" my current project last week--huzzah!--but I was alarmed to look at how much the word count has grown. In a few more days, it's back into the grinder with it to see what fluff can come out. Writing a novel can seem to be a never-ending process, can't it?

I caught the last two hours of last night's debate, and found I actually enjoyed it. Three intelligent people who were sticking to debating the issues and not resorting to a series of schoolyard-level insults. Most surprisingly, I felt that the moderators were rather pro-Sanders in terms of how they ran the debate. They seemed to throw a lot of questions his way, and seemed more willing to defer to him when he asked for a few seconds to respond to something stated by the other candidates during the previous discussion. I feel a bit for Martin O'Malley, who really has to struggle to get his voice heard. Sanders and Clinton are both LOUD and aggressive; O'Malley is kind of a nice balance to that, but he disappeared for long stretches, which is part personality, and part the fault of the moderators.

And, just to finish, tomorrow the Magpie goes back to school as well, so the nest will once again be empty. This is it for her, the final semester of her life as a college student (unless she ultimately opts for graduate school, but that won't be the same). It is truly amazing how fast the time goes, isn't it?

Monday, January 11, 2016

A funny thing happened while I've been griping and grumbling and carping about my current WiP: I'm nearly finished.

Last night, I sat down and tried to work on the penultimate chapter. I didn't have much success, but that's okay. The morning was productive, and this chapter will come--I may start in on it after I finish this post, or this evening when I'm home from work. If all goes well, by the time I have my "State of the Union" conference with Carrie later this week, I'll be able to tell her, "It's done!"* and we'll both be pretty happy about that.

It's funny how stuff like this can sneak up on you. You're plugging along, focused on what's in front of you, and all of a sudden, there it is--whoa, how'd that happen? For a long time it felt like I would never get here, but it happened the way writing always happens: one word, one sentence, one paragraph, one page at a time.

*Of course, I'm not quite ready to pop the champagne just yet (I don't do that, anyway, though I might allow myself a nip of scotch or something). There are those last two chapters to get through. The one I couldn't quite face last night will require a little more heavy construction than the last one. And then it's definitely going to need a re-read and a pass-through before I send it off. Will it ultimately be good enough? That remains to be seen, but it's a step almost completed, and given how difficult it's been to get here, I'll enjoy the moment.

Have you ever surprised yourself by reaching the end of one of your projects? How do you celebrate hitting 'The End'?

I was a little shocked this morning to sit down at my computer and see the news that David Bowie died. Every once in a while someone will die and you'll think, "Wait, I didn't even know he was still alive!" but that was not the case with Bowie. What did surprise me was that he had been battling cancer. Either I don't pay that much attention to the celebrity news or Bowie kept this one to himself. Even when he released a new song not all that long ago (I gave it a listen, and really didn't like it), I don't recall there being any mention of cancer.

I was never a huge Bowie fan; I liked some of his music, but not all of it. Still, there was no doubt that he was a huge persona, and a huge influence in the world of music. Here's "Modern Love." Back when I was a college freshman, there was a guy a few doors down who used to blast this all day.

Monday, January 4, 2016

First post of the new year, and I'm in rather familiar territory: not knowing what to write! So, we'll ramble.

-We did not watch the ball drop--it's just not the same without Dick Clark (though the last time I saw Dick Clark, that wasn't the same, either). We did do a countdown, complete with New Year's hugs and kisses, and I ran outside for a few seconds to bang a wooden spoon against the bottom of a pot. It's something we used to do when I was a kid, part of an old tradition that may have been for good luck, or to chase away bad luck or spirits or something. A lot of people on the block used to do it; here in rural New York, where the neighbors are a little more spread out, I'm the only one who does it.

-The first time I ever came across or heard of "First Night" was when my not-then-wife and I were in Boston for her brother's wedding back in the 90s and we kind of stumbled across it. We had a sort of magical night, which included lucking into a table at a restaurant in the Faneuil Hall Marketplace (New Year's Eve dining without a reservation? Don't try this at home). When we got done with dinner (around 11:30), we walked out of the door and right into the countdown, fireworks, all of it. It was incredible (even more incredible was how fast the place emptied out when it was over).

Since then, First Nights are all over the place, but this weekend, I found myself wondering: shouldn't it really be called Last Night? Or First Morning? Just wondering.

-This weekend we had visits from a couple of the Magpie's friends, and while I know these kids don't want to hear it, I couldn't help but ask them how they were feeling about impending college graduations (I recognize these poor kids have to answer the same questions every time they run into someone they know, but I can't help myself; I'm curious). The consensus seems to be 'Quite Nervous.' I don't remember if I was quite as terrified when I was staring down graduation or not, but I think this is a scarier world than the one I came of age in. These are good kids, smart kids, and they'll be all right. It will be interesting to see where they're at a year from now.

-Yesterday, I did something I haven't done since April: I went to the writers' circle I'm a part of. I have no good explanation for having been away so long, except things started getting crazy toward the end of the Catbird's senior year; there always seemed to be something to do, even on Sundays, and then I got to the point where it was habit not to go.

It was a small group, a number of people missing, and the room we worked in was cold, but it was fun. It was fun to write something that was not part of my current manuscript, a one-off bit about a woman watching her boyfriend get dressed. Good fun, and even if it leads to nothing (and this, I'm pretty sure, is exactly that), it was nice to spend the time and get those creative juices flowing in a slightly different direction. Now, to make going a habit again!

-Finally, this song has been stuck in my head for the better part of a week. Maybe it's the goofy title. Maybe its that pedal steel guitar. Maybe it's that jaunty piano. I don't know. It's catchy, even if it's kind of dark, lyrically.

That's all for me for this week--hope your new year is off to a great start!